Monday, December 31, 2012

Chilling New John Lennon Movie

Los Angeles, CA. "Genius" is a new and chilling movie based on the life and tragic murder of John Lennon. The Producer of the Los Angeles-based film company, Ray Comfort, said, "It's chilling because it reveals what people will do for money. There are ordinary people out there who would kill you. All they need is the right amount of money and the belief that they won't get caught."

Just before he was murdered, John Lennon told Playboy magazine that he didn't want to die at 40. Ironically the famous singer was gunned down at the age of 40 by a man who killed him just because he wanted to become famous.

Comfort said, "Many think that John Lennon was a musical genius. His music has crossed cultures and even generations--the Beatles have sold more than 2,303,500,000 record albums, and in June of 2012 they hit number one on iTunes. They are as big now as they ever were and they're half dead--with the tragic loss of Lennon and Harrison."

Ken Mansfield, the former U.S. Manager for Apple Records said, "Genius will open your eyes." Other reviewers have called it "fast-paced, thought-provoking and compelling." It is being promoted as "33 minutes that will rock your soul." Comfort's last movie "180" received more than 3.7 million views on YouTube and aired on television around the world. "Genius" has been released for free viewing on www.GeniusTheMovie.com to coincide with the December 8th anniversary of the death of John Lennon.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Part 1

Mr. Dave Prentice

Talk: The Latest on Cavemen

Date: January 13th, 2012 7:00pm

Rocky Mountain Creation Fellowship celebrated the new year with a return visit from science educator Dave Prentice of New Orleans, LA. Dave received his B.S. degree in Physics from Loyola University, New Orleans, in 1976. Having been trained to believe in evolution, he continued to do so even after becoming a Christian in 1980.

When the Louisiana legislature passed the "Balanced Treatment Act" in 1980 requiring that the evidence for creation be presented alongside that for evolution, his state representative tried to repeal the law. Dave contacted him to say that it was only fair for the "other guys," the creationists, to have their say. In response to his representative's statement that there was no evidence for creation, Dave began doing research to investigate the claims of the creationists. Within six months of study, he became one of them! Since then he has appeared on radio and television and taught seminars, Sunday school classes, and Bible college classes in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Washington, Colorado, Haiti, Peru, China, India, Honduras, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka. As shown below, he is into fossil digging.

After working in the computer industry for over 27 years, Dave went through a midlife career change in 1999 and became a fulltime high school science teacher. He holds a Louisiana lifetime certificate to teach physics, chemistry, biology, general science and mathematics. He has two master's degrees, M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction - Secondary Science Education, and Master of Arts in Science Teaching as well as a Masters Plus 30. He has been a classroom teacher for twelve years and is currently teaching in the Jefferson Parish Public School System.

Dave is married and has four grown children and six grandchildren. He is a member of Faithful Word Assembly in Kenner, Louisiana.

It has been several years that we have had Dave speak at RMCF, so he has consented to come back and give us an update on the latest findings on Cavemen. (Sneak Preview: The bones are all either apes or men. Nothing in between.)

How did life originate? Evolutionist Professor Paul Davies admitted, “Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell.”1 Andrew Knoll, professor of biology, Harvard, said, “we don’t really know how life originated on this planet”.2 A minimal cell needs several hundred proteins. Even if every atom in the universe were an experiment with all the correct amino acids present for every possible molecular vibration in the supposed evolutionary age of the universe, not even one average-sized functional protein would form. So how did life with hundreds of proteins originate just by chemistry without intelligent design?
See:

How did the DNA code originate? The code is a sophisticated language system with letters and words where the meaning of the words is unrelated to the chemical properties of the letters—just as the information on this page is not a product of the chemical properties of the ink (or pixels on a screen). What other coding system has existed without intelligent design? How did the DNA coding system arise without it being created?
See:

How could mutations—accidental copying mistakes (DNA ‘letters’ exchanged, deleted or added, genes duplicated, chromosome inversions, etc.)—create the huge volumes of information in the DNA of living things? How could such errors create 3 billion letters of DNA information to change a microbe into a microbiologist? There is information for how to make proteins but also for controlling their use—much like a cookbook contains the ingredients as well as the instructions for how and when to use them. One without the other is useless. See: Meta-information: An impossible conundrum for evolution. Mutations are known for their destructive effects, including over 1,000 human diseases such as hemophilia. Rarely are they even helpful. But how can scrambling existing DNA information create a new biochemical pathway or nano-machines with many components, to make ‘goo-to-you’ evolution possible? E.g., How did a 32-component rotary motor like ATP synthase (which produces the energy currency, ATP, for all life), or robots like kinesin (a ‘postman’ delivering parcels inside cells) originate? See:

Why is natural selection, a principle recognized by creationists, taught as ‘evolution’, as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life? By definition it is a selective process (selecting from already existing information), so is not a creative process. It might explain the survival of the fittest (why certain genes benefit creatures more in certain environments), but not the arrival of the fittest (where the genes and creatures came from in the first place). The death of individuals not adapted to an environment and the survival of those that are suited does not explain the origin of the traits that make an organism adapted to an environment. E.g., how do minor back-and-forth variations in finch beaks explain the origin of beaks or finches? How does natural selection explain goo-to-you evolution?
See:

Everyone recognizes design in a glass vase, but evolutionists refuse to believe that the flowers in the vase must also have been designed. The problem is not that they do not show design, but that they show too much design.

How did new biochemical pathways, which involve multiple enzymes working together in sequence, originate? Every pathway and nano-machine requires multiple protein/enzyme components to work. How did lucky accidents create even one of the components, let alone 10 or 20 or 30 at the same time, often in a necessary programmed sequence. Evolutionary biochemist Franklin Harold wrote, “we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”3
See:

Living things look like they were designed, so how do evolutionists know that they were not designed? Richard Dawkins wrote, “biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose.”4 Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, wrote, “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.”5 The problem for evolutionists is that living things show too much design. Who objects when an archaeologist says that pottery points to human design? Yet if someone attributes the design in living things to a designer, that is not acceptable. Why should science be restricted to naturalistic causes rather than logical causes?
See:

How did multi-cellular life originate? How did cells adapted to individual survival ‘learn’ to cooperate and specialize (including undergoing programmed cell death) to create complex plants and animals?
See:

How did sex originate? Asexual reproduction gives up to twice as much reproductive success (‘fitness’) for the same resources as sexual reproduction, so how could the latter ever gain enough advantage to be selected? And how could mere physics and chemistry invent the complementary apparatuses needed at the same time (non-intelligent processes cannot plan for future coordination of male and female organs).
See:

The horseshoe crab is one of thousands of organisms living today that show little change from their ‘deep time’ fossils. In the supposed ‘200 million’ years that the horseshoe crab has remained unchanged (no evolution), virtually all reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, mammals and flowering plants have supposedly evolved.

Why are the (expected) countless millions of transitional fossils missing? Darwin noted the problem and it still remains. The evolutionary family trees in textbooks are based on imagination, not fossil evidence. Famous Harvard paleontologist (and evolutionist), Stephen Jay Gould, wrote, “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology”.6 Other evolutionist fossil experts also acknowledge the problem.
See:

How do ‘living fossils’ remain unchanged over supposed hundreds of millions of years, if evolution has changed worms into humans in the same time frame? Professor Gould wrote, “the maintenance of stability within species must be considered as a major evolutionary problem.”7
See:

How did blind chemistry create mind/ intelligence, meaning, altruism and morality? If everything evolved, and we invented God, as per evolutionary teaching, what purpose or meaning is there to human life? Should students be learning nihilism (life is meaningless) in science classes?
See:

Why is evolutionary ‘just-so’ story-telling tolerated? Evolutionists often use flexible story-telling to ‘explain’ observations contrary to evolutionary theory. NAS(USA) member Dr Philip Skell wrote, “Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive—except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed—except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery.”8
See:

Where are the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution? Dr Marc Kirschner, chair of the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, stated: “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.”9 Dr Skell wrote, “It is our knowledge of how these organisms actually operate, not speculations about how they may have arisen millions of years ago, that is essential to doctors, veterinarians, farmers … .”10 Evolution actually hinders medical discovery.11 Then why do schools and universities teach evolution so dogmatically, stealing time from experimental biology that so benefits humankind?
See:

Science involves experimenting to figure out how things work; how they operate. Why is evolution, a theory about history, taught as if it is the same as this operational science? You cannot do experiments, or even observe what happened, in the past. Asked if evolution has been observed, Richard Dawkins said, “Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it hasn’t been observed while it’s happening.”12
See:

Why is a fundamentally religious idea, a dogmatic belief system that fails to explain the evidence, taught in science classes? Karl Popper, famous philosopher of science, said “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical [religious] research programme ….”13 Michael Ruse, evolutionist science philosopher admitted, “Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”14If “you can’t teach religion in science classes”, why is evolution taught?
See:

References

Knoll, Andrew H., PBS Nova interview, How Did Life Begin? July 1, 2004. Return to text.

Harold, Franklin M. (Prof. Emeritus Biochemistry, Colorado State University) The way of the cell: molecules, organisms and the order of life, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001, p. 205. Return to text.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Steve Austin

B.S. (Geology), M.S. (Geology), Ph.D. (Geology)

Field and Sedimentary Geologist, Senior Research Associate

Dr. Steve Austin is a field research geologist with a Ph.D. from Penn State University in sedimentary geology. His research adventures have taken him by helicopter into the crater of Mount St. Helens volcano, by bush plane onto glaciers in the high mountains of Alaska, by raft through the entire Grand Canyon, on horseback into the high Sierra, by elevator into the world’s deepest coal mines, by SCUBA onto the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, by rail into the backcountry of Korea, by foot onto barren plateaus of southern Argentina, and by four-wheel drive into remote desert areas of Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He is the author of three books, three videos, one computer software package, and more than thirty technical geology papers.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Eric Hovind of Creation Today answers questions about the authority of God’s Word, intelligent design, dinosaurs in the Bible, and more. Interviewed by Paul Crouch, Jr. on the evil Trinity Broadcasting Network’s (TBN) Praise the Lord program of “Creation, Evolution, and God in Science.” Originally aired July 9, 2009.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Why was Darwin’s Origin of Species accepted so enthusiastically by theologians, scientists, and philosophers? How has science come to be dominated by materialism and naturalism? Charles Darwin has been lionized as the father of evolutionism, but deist and atheist philosophers had been setting the stage for rejecting God as Creator for many years before his book appeared. The ideas of Darwin and his predecessors continue to affect our thinking today, with huge consequences for our society. This presentation will trace some of the ideas leading to Darwin’s evolutionary thought and beyond, and how they’ve affected our culture.

Friday, December 14, 2012

"Living fossils" are plants or animals that closely resemble species known from fossils. Many of those listed below were considered extinct and only known through fossil evidence, but were later discovered to still be alive.

It is presumed by evolutionists that fossils are much older than is correct due to a failure of the scientific community to recognize the occurrence of the Biblical global deluge. Based on an incorrect naturalistic assumption, the stratified layers are believe to have accumulated gradually, and are separated by millions of years.

Animals, such as the dinosaurs, are believed to have gone extinct 65 million years before humans lived on earth. However, according to the Bible and its chronology, all plants and animals were created at the same point in time only a few thousand years ago. Most naturalists find this thought laughable and yet many plants and animals are alive today having changed very little from their relatives that reportedly lived millions of years ago. In fact, most living fossils are almost identical to their fossilized ancestors.

On The Next Origins
Watch as scientists, researchers and authors share relevant facts
and thought-provoking evidence supporting creation. Join us for Cornerstone TeleVision's unique program entitled, ORIGINS, and
then decide for yourself the truth about your human origins.

Donn Chapman reminds us,“It’s God’s view that He created you… and that should be your worldview too!”

These new programs seen on Cornerstone Television Network and our affiliates throughout the world, continue to offer a forum to use scientific evidence to validate the truth of creation.

Living fossils: a powerful argument for creation

Dr Werner graduated from the University of Missouri with distinction in biology (summa cum laude). He received his doctoral degree in medicine at the age of 23 and practices emergency medicine in St Louis.
Dr Werner explained what living fossils are and why he became so interested in them, collecting photographs of these fossils over the last 14 years: “Living fossils are fossilized animals and plants that look similar to modern organisms. I became interested in living fossils as a tool to test evolution.” “There are basically two models of how life came about: The evolution model suggests that chemicals coalesced and formed a living single-cell almost four billion years ago and then this changed over long periods of time into all other living things. Examples of evolutionary changes include a dinosaur into a bird, or a four-legged land mammal into a whale. The other model, creation, suggests that an external supernatural being (God) created all of the various types of animals and plants at once, and these organisms have changed little over time, other than variations within a basic type.”
Dr Werner’s use of ‘type’ is similar to the biblical use of the word ‘kind’ in Genesis. For example, an animal can change, but only within its kind, such as a wolf into a dog—not radical change such as a four-legged mammal into a whale.1
Dr Werner continued, “Living fossils provided me a simple way to test evolution. If evolution did not occur (animals did not change significantly over time) and if all of the animals and plants were created at one time and lived together (humans, dinosaurs, oak trees, roses, cats, wolves, etc), then one should be able to find fossils of at least some modern animals and modern plants alongside dinosaurs in the rock layers. I set out to test this idea without any foreknowledge of any modern organisms in the rock layers. My results (as laid out in the book & video Living Fossils) showed that many modern animals and plants are found with dinosaurs—far more than I ever expected to find.”

Dr Werner and his wife Debbie travelled over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) and took 60,000 photographs as they filmed the television series Evolution: The Grand Experiment. (Episode 2 of this series, Living Fossils, reveals exactly what they found.) They focused on fossils found in dinosaur rock layers, and compared these fossils to modern animals and plants.
“We looked only at fossils found in the dinosaur dig sites so that scientists who support evolution could not suggest that the fossils we looked at were not ‘old’. All of the fossils we used for comparisons were found in dinosaur rock layers (Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous).”

Many modern animals in dinosaur rock!

I asked Carl just how many modern types of animals he had found in the dinosaur rock layers.
“We found fossilized examples from every major invertebrate animal phylum living today including: arthropods (insects, crustaceans etc.), shellfish, echinoderms (starfish, crinoids, brittle stars, etc.), corals, sponges, and segmented worms (earthworms, marine worms).
“The vertebrates—animals with backbones such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals—show this same pattern.”

Modern fish, amphibians and reptiles

“Cartilaginous fish (sharks and rays), boney fish (such as sturgeon, paddlefish, salmon, herring, flounder and bowfin) and jawless fish (hagfish and lamprey) have been found in the dinosaur layers and they look the same as modern forms.
“Modern-looking frogs and salamanders have been found in dinosaur dig sites.
“All of today’s reptile groups have been found in the dinosaur layers and they look the same or similar to modern forms: Snakes (boa constrictor), lizards (ground lizards and gliding lizards), turtles (box turtles, soft-shelled turtles), and crocodilians (alligators, crocodiles and gavials).”

Modern birds

“Contrary to popular belief, modern types of birds have been found, including: parrots, owls, penguins, ducks, loons, albatross, cormorants, sandpipers, avocets, etc. When scientists who support evolution disclosed this information during our TV interviews it appears that they could hardly believe what they were saying on camera.”

Dr William Clemens, UC Berkeley, on modern birds being found in Cretaceous rock. (Clip from Living Fossils DVD)

Mammals

“At the dinosaur dig sites, scientists have found many unusual extinct mammal forms such as the multituberculates2 but they have also found fossilized mammals that look like squirrels, possums, Tasmanian devils, hedgehogs, shrews, beavers, primates, and duck-billed platypus. I don’t know how close these mammals are to the modern forms because I was not able to see most of these, even after going to so many museums.”

Paleontologists have found 432 mammal species in the dinosaur layers; almost as many as the number of dinosaur species. … But where are these fossils? We visited 60 museums but did not see a single complete mammal skeleton from the dinosaur layers displayed at any of these museums. This is amazing.

“Few are aware of the great number of mammal species found with dinosaurs. Paleontologists have found 432 mammal species in the dinosaur layers;3 almost as many as the number of dinosaur species. These include nearly 100 complete mammal skeletons. But where are these fossils? We visited 60 museums but did not see a single complete mammal skeleton from the dinosaur layers displayed at any of these museums. This is amazing. Also, we saw only a few dozen incomplete skeletons/single bones of the 432 mammal species found so far. Why don’t the museums display these mammal fossils and also the bird fossils?”

Many modern plants in dinosaur rock!

“In the dinosaur rock layers, we found fossils from every major plant division living today including: flowering plants, ginkgos, cone trees, moss, vascular mosses, cycads, and ferns. Again, if you look at these fossils and compare them to modern forms, you will quickly conclude that the plants have not changed. Fossil sequoias, magnolias, dogwoods, poplars and redwoods, lily pads, cycads, ferns, horsetails etc. have been found at the dinosaur digs.”

Fossil sea urchin

Living sea urchin

Were any modern organisms not found?

“I did not find fossils of every organism living today in the dinosaur layers, rather I found representative examples from all of the major animal phyla living today and all of the major plant divisions living today. Taking it one step further, within these bigger groups, I frequently found representatives of all of the major groups or classes within a phylum. For example, for echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, etc.) I found fossils of all of the major types living today. Same with the insects and the crocodilians, etc. I did not find any large mammals. The largest mammal discovered in a dinosaur layer so far (live size) is 30 pounds (13 kg). Nevertheless, with so many living fossils, both plants and animals, from all of the major phyla and all of the major plant divisions, it points to stasis (lack of change), not evolution. I should also note that if you look at the serious problems with the fossil layer system (the geological column as presented by geologists today), the absence of the bigger mammals can easily be accounted for, but I will save this for a later day.”

Evolutionary story telling ‘unsinkable’?

I asked Dr Werner how evolutionary scientists deal with this evidence, given these remarkable findings. Dr Werner remarked, “If you whole-heartedly believe in a theory, you will always be able to sustain that belief—even in the face of contradictory evidence—by adding a rescue hypothesis to that theory. For example, if a scientist believes in evolution and sees fossils that look like modern organisms at the dinosaur digs, he/she might invent an hypothesis to ‘explain’ living fossils this way: ‘Yes I believe that animals have changed greatly over time (evolution), but some animals and plants were so well adapted to the environment that they did not need to change. So I am not bothered at all by living fossils.’ This added hypothesis says that some animals did not evolve. But if a theory can be so flexible, adding hypotheses that predict the opposite of your main theory, one could never disprove the theory. The theory then becomes unsinkable, and an unsinkable theory is not science.”

Different names for the same animal?

Carl related how evolutionary scientists give fossils different genus and species names from the living forms, creating the illusion of evolution: “Let me give you an example. A scientist found a fossil sea urchin in Cretaceous rock that looks nearly identical to a modern Purple Heart sea urchin, but assigned it to a completely new genus (Holaster). If you saw that creature alive in the ocean you would recognize it as a Purple Heart sea urchin (genus Spatangus). The different name suggests that sea urchins have changed over time, but this is contrived ‘evidence’ for evolution. The fossil looks the same as the living one.” (See photos right).

Evolution disproved?

I asked Dr Werner if his study disproved evolution.
“It is becoming more and more difficult for the evolutionary model to stand in the face of this great number of living fossils. Adding the many other problems with evolution (fossil record, origin of first life, geological layering problems, similarities of non-related animals, etc.), you can declare with confidence that yes, the theory is finished. If a few larger mammals were found in the dinosaur layers, it should be over even for the die-hard believers of evolution, but people tend to go to their grave with the theories they learned in college. A new generation might well look at all of this and ask, ‘What were they thinking?’ ”

Coelacanth - Dates back 400 million years. The Coelacanth fossil pictured at right pre-dates the dinosaurs by millions of years, and was once thought to have gone extinct with them 65 million years ago until it was discovered alive and well in 1938.

Salamander Origins Pegged To Asia National Geographic News 3/28/2001. A recent fossil find in China was dated to 150 mya, and is virtually unchanged from what we find living today in the neighborhood swamp.

Sturgeon is claimed to be 250 million years old, and living since the time of the dinosaurs.

Niles Eldredge, Curator, American Museum Of Natural History, under the heading "Living Fossils", in his book, FOSSILS, 1991.

"...there seems to have been almost no change in any part we can compare between the living organism and its fossilized progenitors of the remote geological past. Living fossils embody the theme of evolutionary stability to an extreme degree. ....We have not completely solved the riddle of living to an extreme degree. ....We have not completely solved the riddle of living fossils. " p.101, 108

"...were thought to have been extinct by the end of the Middle Devonian [385 MYA]. Modern Neopilina species, however, were dredged from the deep oceans in the 1950's..." p.101

"There are also numerous organisms, in the present day fauna and flora, which can be regarded as living fossils; one of the best known among them is Neopilina, the only living representative of a class of mollusks...thought to have been extinct for 350 million years before 1957, when Neopilina was caught off the coast of Costa Rica." , p.78

"The Gingko biloba is the sole surviving species of a very old group of gymnosperms which died out 100 million years ago." PREHISTORIC ATLAS, 1982, p.78

"Off the coast of southern Africa, in the winter of 1938, a fishing boat called The Nerine dragged from the Indian Ocean near the Chalumna River a fish thought to be extinct for 70 million years. The fish was a coelacanth, an animal that thrived concurrently with dinosaurs..." From bookcover.

"The first members of this group appeared some 424 million years ago in the Silurian and look quite like the modern forms. The last fossils became extinct about 50 million years ago." p.72

"This species was widespread and reasonably common in the Pliocene of North America... The tree was thought to be extinct worldwide until living specimens were found in central China in 1945." p.72

Sue Rigby, British Geological Survey, Nature Vol.363, p.209, 3/18/93

"All paleontologist dream of finding a 'living fossil.' Noel Dilly, it seems has done so... As graptolites are arguably the most important zone fossils of the Lower Palaeozoic (570-360 million years before the present), this is far from an esoteric issue."

"Living fossil" discovered in SW China Experts recently discovered around 1200 Chinese Hynobiidaes in Guiding county Southwest of China's Guizhou province. These are a type of amphibian species around 300 million years old that once used to live in the dinosaur period. People's Daily Online. July 21, 2006

Salamander Origins Pegged To Asia National Geographic News 3/28/2001. A recent fossil find in China was dated to 150 mya, and is virtually unchanged from what we find living today in the neighborhood swamp.

Ussher and the Date of Creation

by Larry Pierce

April 28, 2006

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The age of the earth is one of the most contentious issues in the creation/evolution debate. In today’s culture, the thought of creation occurring about 6,000 years ago is frequently mocked by non-Christians—and also by many Christians.

Even James Ussher (1581-1656), the famous and respected Archbishop of Ireland in the seventeenth century, is today greatly ridiculed for declaring that the world was created in 4004 BC.

However, this date was widely accepted until people began to believe in ideas such as billions of years of Earth history. In other words, they started trusting in the latest secular findings based on fallible dating methods, instead of the only absolutely reliable method—consulting the history book provided by the Eyewitness account (the infallible Word of God).

Ussher also argued that Day 1 of creation was October 23. On the surface, this does seem a bit extreme to suggest such a specific date—but when one studies what Ussher did, one quickly realizes he was a brilliant scholar who had very good reasons for his conclusions concerning the date of creation.

Studying Ussher’s line of thinking as he arrived at his conclusion—creation on October 23, 4004 BC—provides food for thought to this very day.

The Bible—The Basis for Ussher’s Work

One of Ussher’s many projects was to write a complete history of the world in Latin, covering every major event from the time of creation to AD 70. He published this 1,600-page volume in 1650. An English translation entitled The Annals of the World was first published in 1658, two years after his death. (The complete work is fascinating. It has recently been translated into modern English and republished.1)

In preparing this work, Ussher first made the assumption that the Bible is the only reliable source of chronological information for the time periods covered therein. In fact, before the Persian Empire (approximately the sixth to third centuries BC) very little is known from any source about Greek, Roman and Egyptian history or the history of other nations; much rests on speculation and myths. Dates in secular history become more certain with the founding of the Medo-Persian Empire.

For events before this time, Ussher relied solely on data from the Bible to erect his historical framework. He chose the death of King Nebuchadnezzar as a reliable date upon which to anchor all the earlier biblical dates. Working meticulously backward from there, he ended up with his date for creation of October 23, 4004 BC.

How Ussher Arrived at the Year of Creation

Who is Ussher?

Archbishop James Ussher was a highly educated and well-respected historian who devoted his life to defending the Christian faith. Ussher meticulously researched the secular accounts of history and found that the Bible correlated with them. Ussher dedicated several years of his life to compiling a history of the world from creation to AD 70.

He was also...

a well-respected scholar and theologian

ordained as a priest in the Anglican church at 20

a great academic, earning his doctorate at 26

a meticulous researcher

one of history's most famous historians

the author of the unparalleled historical work The Annals of the World

buried in Westminster Abbey

Now you ask: How did he get 4004 BC?

Answer: He used the chronologies in the Hebrew text ofGenesis 5 and 11, together with other Bible passages that we will consider. To simplify the calculations, Ussher ties the chronology to the final deportation of Judah in 584 BC. His detailed calculations cover over 100 pages in the original document.

How Ussher Arrived at Day 1 of Creation

Nowhere in your Bible does it say that the day of creation was October 23. Because the Jews and many other ancient peoples started their year in the autumn, Ussher assumed there must be a good reason for it. He therefore concluded that God created the world in the autumn. After consulting astronomical tables, he picked the first Sunday on or after the autumnal equinox to begin the year 4004 BC.

But the equinox occurs around September 21, not October 23. At least, it does now, thanks to some juggling of the calendar. In his research Ussher found that the ancient Jews and the Egyptians did not use the orbit of the moon (lunar calendar) as the basis for their year. Instead, their year was made up of twelve months, each thirty days long. At the end of their year they tacked on five days, and every fourth year they added six days. However, a year of 365 days is too short, and one of exactly 365.25 days is too long. They had to drop days from it every now and then to keep the seasons from drifting.

When Julius Caesar reformed the calendar, he adopted basically the same system we now use, with twelve months of various lengths. However, even with his reforms, the seasons began to drift. By the 1700s the English calendar was off by eleven days. On September 2, 1752, eleven days were dropped from the English calendar to make the seasons start when they were supposed to. Another day was dropped in 1800 and again in 1900. These years would normally have been leap years, but instead were made normal years to keep the calendar in line. Today we use the Gregorian calendar, which is a refinement of the Julian calendar.

Before Julius Caesar’s reform, no correcting adjustments were made to the calendar. When we consider the four thousand years between Caesar’s time and the time of creation, almost thirty-two days have to be dropped to make the seasons start when they should. By making these adjustments, Ussher arrived at the date of October 23, not September 21. However, when the Gregorian calendar corrections are applied to the Julian date of October 23, 4004 BC, we get the Gregorian date September 21, 4004 BC, which is the normal day for the autumnal equinox.

Was Ussher Correct?

Is there any way that we can verify Ussher’s date for creation? There is a passage in Amos that is quite interesting. Around 800 BC Amos made the following prediction in Amos 8:9–10 (NKJV):And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord GOD, that I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight; I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist, and baldness on every head; I will make it like mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

Was Ussher a Dunce?

In a publication produced by progressive creationist Dr. Hugh Ross (who promotes the big bang, a local Flood, and age of the earth of millions of years and nonliteral days of creation, etc.), a cartoon mocks Archbishop Ussher. It characterized him as a "dunce" because he proposed that God created the universe around 6,000 years ago, and the days of creation were literal days. But was he a dunce as Dr. Ross portrays?

Many contend that the ancient Jews used a lunar calendar before the Babylonian captivity. If this is so, then Jewish feasts such as the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Tabernacles would occur about the middle of the month around a full moon. You can never get a solar eclipse when the moon is full! A lunar calendar would make the seasons drift by up to 30 days. Since the Levitical system was based on the agricultural cycle, you could very easily end up, in some years, celebrating the Feast of First Fruits after the entire crop had been harvested. At the other extreme, you might hold the feast before any crop was ready to harvest, which really makes a mockery of the feast. In order for this feast system to work reliably, you must follow the solar year so that the seasons start when they are supposed to and harvests occur about the same time each year.

Ussher states on page 9 in the preface of his Annals of the World, “Moreover, we find that the years of our forefathers, the years of the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, were the same length as the Julian year. It consisted of twelve months containing thirty days each. (It cannot be proven that the Hebrews used lunar months before the Babylonian captivity.) Five days were added after the twelfth month each year. Every four years, six days were added after the twelfth month.”2

The testimony of so many ancient writers seems to confirm the antiquity (extreme age) of the use of the Julian year—that is, three hundred and sixty-five days with the addition of one extra day every four years. Hence, Ussher had very good reasons for selecting the length of the year that he did. In fact, modern scholarship recognizes this. In 1940 W. G. Waddell translated the works of Manetho, an Egyptian priest of the third century BC, and has the following translation for a portion of the work: “Saites added 12 hours to the month, to make its length 30 days; he added 6 days to the year, which thus comprised of 365 days.”3

On this passage Waddell has the following footnote: “The addition of 5 days (not 6 as above) to the short year of 360 days was made long before the Hyksos age: it goes back to at least the Pyramid Age and probably earlier. The introduction of the calendar, making an artificial reconciliation of lunar and solar years, perhaps as early as 4236 BC, is believed to give the earliest fixed date of human history.”4

What the writer is saying is that the calendar, which we now attribute to Julius Caesar, is of very early origin, and it likely dates back to the beginning of civilization. Ussher agrees and, by using the Bible, arrives at the date of 4004 BC for the beginning of civilization, not 4236 BC. (The point being made is that both agreed on the length of the year and that the Julian year is of great antiquity.)

Conclusion

We have seen that Ussher had logical and historically valid reasons for arriving at the year, and even his proposed beginning date of creation. These were not wild guesses of some illiterate bishop counting on his fingers and toes, as progressive creationist Dr. Hugh Ross disrespectfully alleged in his organization’s cartoon (see inset). When we defer to the Bible as our authoritative basis for the areas on which it touches, it will prove itself without fail.

As the Scripture states: let God be true but every man a liar (Romans 3:4).

Larry Pierce is a retired computer programmer who greatly enjoys ancient history. This passion led him to spend five years translating The Annals of the World from Latin to English. He is also the creator of a sophisticated and powerful Bible program, The Online Bible.